Chapter 21 Kai
Kai
“You disappeared for three years . . . for three years, Kai! And when you condescend to re-emerge it's in the middle of a shitstorm? Seriously?” We’ve not made it six steps out of Theron’s tent before my twin sister is in my face, all white-hot fury and sharp canines, her red hair sprawling out like a mane behind her.
“Mother had been losing her mind worrying while you were what?
Indulging your cock and breaking alliances? "
“Well at least the second part of that is true. As for my—”
“- don’t you dare finish that sentence.”
I cross my arms, glare impassively down at her from my greater height and wait.
It takes about five seconds for her skin color to darken. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Are you going to explain yourself?”
“I thought you forbade my finishing a sentence. With you being heir apparent and all, I didn’t want to push my luck.”
“Don’t you start on that,” she stalks forward, fire playing like bracelets around her wrists as she pokes her finger into my chest. Behind us, the command tent’s canvas flap is still hissing open and closed.
No doubt Autumn, our aunt, is evicting all the courtiers so she can have a real chat with Theron.
Or knock Theron's head into a pillar of reality. Either will work. Aunt Autumn is the most petite fae I’ve ever seen, and one of the most quietly powerful ones.
Anyone stupid enough to underestimate her deserves what they get.
She is also the only member of my perfect family I connect with.
Other than my twin. But that’s more of a love vs rip you entrails out and stomp on them kind of relationship.
“Let me know when you are done ranting, Auri,” I tell my sister.
Her real name Autumn—after my aunt—makes for two Autumns in one court.
A problem my parents really should have predicted.
So by the time we started walking, Young Autumn became Auri, a golden twist on the season’s name.
And apparently the one that I could pronounce at the time.
Rocking back on my heels I wait for Auri to finish her tirade of listing my deficiencies.
At least I think that’s what she is doing.
She is pacing and I’m not really listening.
Auri is all fire. You are best off letting it burn blazing hot before trying to touch it.
Plus, it annoys the shit out of her when I give no reaction.
“Are you even really engaged?” Auri asks, her voice finally reclaiming a caliber that’s compatible with life. “Like to a real breathing person?”
“Yes.”
She cocks a brow.
“Yes. Rowan, my fiancée, matches all your criteria.”
Auri’s eyes narrow.
“Real. Breathing. A person.” I unbend my fingers with each word for emphasis. “All there. All true.”
“What are you not telling me?”
“Your fiancée is unconscious?" Autumn demands, stalking up to me from Theron’s tent. The top of her head is well below my shoulder level, which makes her no less frightening. Frankly, I consider it a miracle the command tent still stands.
Auri grabs my arm, her nails angled to dig into my flesh. A dirty trick she’s used since childhood. “You said—”
“-Real, breathing, a person. Those were your criteria, not mine.”
“Let’s take a walk.” Autumn links her arm through mine and offers the kind of smile that lays your choices out clearly: do as you are told, or be eviscerated. “I’m thinking of some place open and airy. Like your tent on the draken flight field.”
“Why would Kai set up a tent on a draken field?” Auri asks. “Even he knows that’s suicide.” Her voice flips suddenly from indignant to concerned. “Wait, are you trying to get yourself hurt? Did something happen? Are you alright? Do you need help? How can I help?”
My jaw tenses, shadows wrapping around my knuckles. There it is. My family’s how can we help that keeps hanging over me like a black cloud. It was there when my magic failed to manifest in adolescence, and every time since—whenever I fucked up.
And I always fuck up.
“Relax. The draken won’t eat me.” I tilt my head. “They might eat you though. So maybe stay here and negotiate a peace treaty, or save kittens or whatever it is you do.”
“Asshole.”
“Cool off, both of you.” Autumn taps her hand against her thigh, sparks playing casually over her finger.
"Auri, go inspire Prince Cowardice to pack a bag and send him off somewhere. From what I can tell, Kai was acting like a blunt imbecile, but he wasn’t wrong—Theron’s foremost concern is getting his own ass clear of danger.
A properly desperate request from the Slate heir apparent should provide all the excuse he needs to get out of everyone’s hair here. ”
Auri sighs, but gives me a vulgar gesture and strides off toward the prince.
Before I can find somewhere else to be as well, Autumn’s arm tightens where it's linked with mine. “Keep walking. Let us see if we can make it from here to your Rowan without setting off a war.”
We keep quiet until we leave the noisy parts of camp behind, exchanging the rows of tents and soldiers for a wide swath of trampled grass and churned earth.
It’s actually beautiful, as far as fields can be.
Especially with the way the sun’s rays pattern the windbreak and shimmer off the drakens’ scales.
“Don’t make eye contact with any of them,” I warn my aunt. “One of the dams laid an egg yesterday, so they are in kill-first-ask-question- never kind of posture.”
“Delightful creatures.” Autumn studies her nails. “Can give their dragon shifter cousins a run for the hospitality award.”
I snort. “As if your best friend isn’t a dragon shifter.”
Quinton. A Massa’eve prince and one of Lilith’s fathers. He’s also the only other shadow wielder I’ve met thus far. After I completely exasperated my own kingdom, my mother had made arrangements for me to stay at the Massa’eve court and train with him.
I repaid them by paralyzing their daughter.
“I take it you belong to one of these death mongers?” Autumn asks, which earns an approving noise from Ulyssus. “That at least accounts for one year of your spectacular disappearance. Care to share what you did with the other two?”
“Feigned being human and joined Eryndor’s Spire training. Along with two friends.”
"Hmm.” Autumn makes a sound with the back of her throat. “Was it any good?”
“No.”
“Did you expect it to be?”
I let out a long breath. One thing I’ve learned about playing games with Autumn is that you’ve lost before you even started.
It’s better to just tell her what she wants to know and hope she doesn’t want to know more.
“I went to find a cure for auric poisoning. To unfuck what I did to Lilith. Make it so she can fly again.”
“Yes, I suspected the dagger incident had something to do with your sudden departure,” she says evenly. “And did you—find the antidote, I mean?”
“Still working on it.” I stop outside our tent and snag control of the conversation. “Speaking of antidotes, I’m hoping you might pull something from that arcane-magic filled brain of yours for Rowan.”
“Because she is the love of your life and you want to marry her?”
“Yes.”
“Not because she is an alchemist and you want to use her to cure Lilith?”
There it is. I raise my chin, but keep the rest of my body rock-still. “Can’t it be both?”
“It can.” Autumn shrugs a delicate shoulder and finishes the few steps left to the tent. “But just because it can doesn’t mean it is. Let’s see what we have on our hands first. She certainly isn’t fit to fulfill either calling unconscious.”
I hold the tent flap open to let Autumn inside and follow behind her while she surveys the scene—one unconscious human, one feral wolf, one exhausted prince and one idiot with shadows. For all the trouble we are causing, we don’t look all that impressive.
I nod toward Kyrian, who looks up from where he is studying maps spread on a low table. “Allow me to introduce—”
“Prince Kyrian,” Autumn holds out her hand for Kyrian to shake. “A pleasure to see you again.”
“My apologies. Please remind me when we last met?”
“I never said we’ve met,” says Autumn. “I just said it was good to see you again.”
Right.
“Kyrain, meet Autumn,” I say tightly. Slate’s diplomatic envoy and spy. depending on what the situation calls for. “My aunt.”
“Ah.” Kyrian brushes a hand through his hair, betraying his fatigue. “A pleasure. I didn’t know you’d arrived.”
“There have been some developments.”
“Theron?”
“Being managed.” I say. “She is going to try to wake Rowan.”
Logan, still sprawled in wolf form along Rowan’s side, lifts his head and gives Autumn a wet sort of snort. I do quick introductions while everyone sorts themselves out.
“How long has she been like this?” Autumn rolls up her sleeves before pulling the top of Rowan’s night shirt open, exposing her chest.
“About a week,” Kyrian says, filling Autumn in on the details as she dips a finger into a water bowl and draws a rune along Rowan’s clavicle.
The mark blooms honey-gold before sinking into her skin, and I try not to flinch.
I trust Autumn with my life, but this is Rowan lying there helpless.
Lying there, because I — like always — fuck up everything I touch.
“I don’t know if it helps, but Rowan gets headaches and dizzy spells,” Kyrain offers, pulling a slip of parchment from his pocket. “She was looking for these ingredients to brew a tonic she used in Eryndor to help, but never got them together before everything happened."
“Everything being the decimation of a third of Theron’s steel arsenal in the space of two heartbeats,” I clarify.
Autumn frowns at the parchment. “Those are suppressors. Not by themselves, but if combined in the right way.”
“Of headaches?” Kyrian asks.
“Of magic.” Autumn wrinkles her nose. “They shouldn’t have helped.”
“But they did.” I step closer, trying and failing not to hover over Autumn.
Fortunately, she just ignores me as she redoubles her concentration, interrogating Rowan with one rune after another, all sketched in water over bare skin.
A line of symbols at Rowan’s ribs, one at each temple, one in the hollow of her throat.
The symbols multiply until Rowan looks half-scribed with light, a map of glowing veins etched across her skin.
I count breaths, then stop because Rowan’s don’t come steady enough to match.
At last Autumn murmurs something too quiet to catch, brushes her damp thumb across Rowan’s temple, and the last of the light seeps away. My body stills as she lets her hand fall to her lap, focus shifting from Rowan to me.
Kyrian steps up to my shoulder, and so does Logan, shifting back to his fae form in a flash of light. “Have ye figured it out then?” he asks.
“Yes.” Autumn nods. “In short, this girl commandeered more magic than she could control or withstand. The excess never dispersed. It’s blazing inside her, drawing on her life to survive and attacking her in return because it has no escape.”
“But you can release it?” I say.
“Not without killing her immediately." Autumn’s gaze softens, which makes my heart stutter. Whatever she is about to say next won’t be good news. “The magic will keep attacking her until it runs out of fuel to sustain itself. And since it feeds on her essence—”
“- it only runs out of fuel when she dies,” I finish for Autumn as ice slithers all through my veins. “What if you use me? Connect us in a way that lets me share the load.”
“Then Rowan dies and you die,” Autumn answers without missing a beat. As if she'd known I’d ask. “There is too much magic for even you to ground safely.”
My upper lip curls away from my teeth. “You can’t know that for certain.”
“Yes, actually I can.” Autumn stands, dusting drops of water from her pants. “You’d be amazed at how many things one can know when one calculates them.”
“And you’ll be amazed at—”
“ -what if it's three?” Logan says, cutting me off.
“Three what?” Autumn asks.
“What if it’s not just Kai sharing the load, but all three of us?” Logan steps forward. Prowls actually. “Can she survive if all three of us connect to her?”
Autumn frowns. “Theoretically.”
“I’m in,” Logan says without hesitation.
“As am I,” Kyrian and I say together.
“Stop.” Autumn puts up her hand, palms out, sparks playing about her knuckles. “Let’s clear a few things up. This isn’t a simple relay of energy. You wouldn’t be carrying her power like water in a bucket. You’d share her current, your body a pathway for her very lethal magic.”
“But she would live?” says Logan.
Autumn bends in her fingers until only two remain up. “Second, a connection like this isn’t temporary, reversible, or tidy. It’s a bond. A merging of life essence. The new pathways would be permanent.”
“How do we do it?” I ask.
Autumn gives me a glare and holds up a third finger.
“Third, I can’t begin to predict the long term effects.
What happens when you walk in different directions?
Will you tolerate a league of distance? An ocean?
A foot? How long will a fae’s essence tolerate mingling with a human’s?
What of your draken bonds? And, frankly, what happens if one of you dies? ”
Kyrian opens his mouth but Autumn points her finger at his chest before he can utter a word.
“And lastly, even split four ways, this magic is dangerous. It may kill all four of you. Or change you in ways none of us can anticipate. And there will be no way of turning back if you discover you don’t like it after all. ”
She lets her hands drop, the sparks vanishing like mist. Silence stretches, the pounding of my heart so loud in my ears I can barely think over the sound.
“Do you now see why this can’t be done?” Autumn says all too gently.
Logan scratches the back of his head. “Actually, ma’am, I was just waiting for you to run out of fingers to count on.”